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<TITLE>Master Student Comprehensive Examination Questions</TITLE>
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<h2>	M.S. Comprehensive Examination Questions</h2>

<h3>Fall 1996</h3>
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The following are three pertinent areas in Computer Science.  Answer the 
question in one of the areas, in detail, within the one hour time period 
of this examination.
<ol>

<h4><li>  Database/Information Systems</h4>

<dt>	Traditionally, database systems are designed to manage structured 
information.  Information retrieval systems, on the other hand, are 
intended for managing unstructured text.  With the ubiquitous interest in 
multimedia systems and the advent of the World-wide Web (WWW or simply 
Web) in 1993, the distinction between database and information retrieval 
systems has begun to blur and has raised several challenging database issues.
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<dt>	Multimedia data types include structured data, text, graphics, 
electronic ink, animation, images, audio, and video.  In addition to 
large storage requirements, video and audio has temporal dimension 
intrinsic to the data.  There is subjectivity associated with the 
interpretation of images by different users.  User queries tend to be 
incomplete and imprecise.
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<dt>	Web is hypermedia storage and retrieval environment where a vast 
collection of interconnected documents are distributed across the 
Internet.  Thus, Web can be viewed as a large, distributed heterogeneous 
(or multimedia) database system.  Although some useful information may 
exist somewhere in the Web, locating such information by a Web user often 
requires enormous search time and effort.
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<dt>	Several database issues need to be addressed to facilitate 
retrieving relevant information from the Web efficiently and 
effectively.  Discuss how you would address the following aspects:

<ul>
<b>a.</b>	Data modeling to incorporate rich image semantics and temporal 
dimension in audio and video data.
<br><br>
<b>b.</b>	Query language to accommodate incomplete and imprecise queries.
<br><br>
<b>c.</b>	Query processing algorithms to incorporate user subjectivity in 
the interpretation of image contents.
<br><br>
<b>d.</b>  Network issues including navigation strategies and protocols to 
provide data distribution/location transparency.
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<h4><li>  Algorithms</h4>

<dt>	Discuss in detail the various algorithmic analysis/complexity 
issues which might arise when developing software that will make 
extensive use of tree and graph data structures.  Cite examples when 
helpful in your discussion.


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<h4><li>  Network Systems</h4>
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<b>a.</b>	What will be the role of the internet in the next ten years?
<br>
<br>
<b>b.</b>	Discuss the qualities of two internet providers,  Microsoft 
Explorer and Netscape Navigator, that make them different from one another.
<br>
<br>
<b>c.</b>	Discuss the advantages of object-oriented programming style over 
other programming styles.
<br>
<br>
<b>d.</b>	"Personal Computing" has grown in an alarming scale within the 
past decade.  Discuss the different uses and new markets for "personal 
computing" and the directions it will take in the next ten years.
<br>
<br>
<b>e.</b>	Computer viruses and security are issues that worry organizations 
having networked computer systems.  Discuss what you think might be 
possible solutions for these problems.
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